So in 63 BCE, Lucius Catiline tried to overthrow the Roman Senate and take control of the empire. Here’s the salient point: he organized armies to do it. Not metaphorical armies like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Literal armies, in an age when “law and order” was enforced (and imposed) by soldiers. Catiline didn’t depend on private individuals with private arsenals. He depended on military leaders loyal to him, and their armies loyal to the military leaders.
Donald Trump in 2025, should he wish to repeat J6, will have to rely on individuals again. But where, to begin with, will they gather on the fateful day? In 2021, Trump was the POTUS and could command control of the Ellipse for a speech. In 2025, he’ll be a private citizen, with no such authority. It’s not a small thing that a President did that (but it shrinks by the day; it shouldn’t, but it does), but it would be a huge thing, an impossible thing, for a failed candidate and private citizen to do that. And, again, that was not a spontaneous uprising turned into a mob by Trump’s fiery rhetoric on January 6. That assault on the Capitol and the government officials inside was planned and promoted almost since Election Day 2020, if not before. The speech wasn’t even the match; it was just the final word from the coach before the team went out to play the game.
On J6 Trump didn’t have an army, and he has even less access to one now. All he really had was the intent to intimidate which, in Catiline’s first attempt, was all he had, too. But after the first attempt failed, Catiline still had a general or two willing to back him again. Trump has a delusional handful in Milwaukee this week; and J.D. Vance. I like our odds.
Besides, Trump preceded J6 with over 60 lawsuits. He might get Paxton or some other GOP AG’s to try (and fail) again, but probably not without the cover of several more private suits. And who pays for those? Trump is already draining RNC coffers flat to defend him and appeal 3 other (soon to be five) cases. Where does the money come from? Catiline had financial backers but, by Election Day, Trump will pretty much have drained them dry (or stored the money away for himself). The taps will have been turned off by then. A two-time loser is a loser in fact. His only hope will be to rally the troops, and since he can’t rally them in multiple states to oppose the tabulations after midnight on November 5th (he tried that, too, in 2020; mostly by complaining publicly about it), he’ll have to do it on January 6, 2025. Which will prove very nearly impossible and besides, we’ve seen that movie. Permits for the crowd would not be granted . The whole thing would likely be an impotent fizzle.
Which is not to say violence won’t erupt, but it will be violence on the scale of the shooting in Florida: horrific for the innocent victims, but in the grand scheme of American politics, barely a blip. J6 was orders of magnitude worse, and the individual most responsible, who gleefully watched it safely on TeeVee, is the person least qualified to ever inhabit that building again. We’re already conveniently ignoring how much violence Trump unleashed that day, violence he intended as part of his goal of upsetting the Constitutional order to give him a last chance at holding on to the office. That even the Supreme Court now thinks that wasn’t a crisis, but prosecuting Trump for his actions would be, is to put Trump v U.S. in the context it should be. If we let J6 become nothing but a political football, we don’t, in Franklin’s memorable phrase, deserve to keep the Republic.
But that won’t be the same thing as allowing it to happen again. I really don’t think the adults in Washington (congressional leadership having likely changed hands by then; but I mean the Capitol Police) will allow it.
Unless, of course, Biden bends and steps aside from the nomination. Then we’re well and truly fucked.
(Sallust, by the way, mostly blames character, of Catiline and the people he rallies to his cause, for the progress of the conspiracy. His analysis is narrow, in that regard, but insightful.)
*Sallust, tr. Josiah Osgood, Princeton University Press, 2022.
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